Microsoft’s efforts to bring its formidable software portfolio into the hybrid cloud caught up to SQL Server this week with the preview of a new release that includes functionality for automatically offloading transactional information to its infrastructure-as-a-service platform. The addition sets a new bar for relational databases in the on-demand era.

The concept of bursting workloads to the public cloud is hardly new, with several appliances already offering organizations the ability to the ability to move data back and forth from their on-premise environments. That includes Microsoft’s own homegrown block storage systems, which even come with an Azure subscription.

But implementing the functionality in the database extends the appeal of the hybrid model beyond the narrow subset of organizations willing to make a special investment to any customer interested in storing more information than their on-premise environments can effectively accommodate. With IDC estimating that the amount of data stored in the enterprise doubles every 18 months, that constitutes a massive market.

That’s especially true given that the low cost of storing data in the public cloud allows CIOs to hold onto data for much longer periods than they’ve traditionally done, which is becoming an increasingly common practice with the growing adoption of modern analytics. In that sense, the bursting functionality in the upcoming SQL Server 2016 is set to create a double opportunity for Microsoft.

Not only should the ability to exploit the economies of Azure make the system more attractive, but the information that customers will move to the cloud platform using the feature will generate additional cloud revenue. And all of this will put Microsoft in a that much stronger position to compete against rival relational database vendors, such as Oracle, that are also trying to make the cloud a bigger part of their strategies.

Of course, the enhancements in SQL Server 2016 are unlikely to be left unanswered by the competition, but Microsoft is not limiting its differentiation efforts to cloud bursting either. The upcoming release is also set to introduce value-added features that will make it easier for organizations to take advantage of the new hybrid functionality, most notably an encryption mechanism allowing cryptographic keys to be trusted with the client application.

That means administrators will have the ability to scramble not only the contents of the database itself but also the queries used to access that information. That includes regular SQL requests as well as operations executed through the commercial implementation of the R statistical programming language that Microsoft obtained through its acquisition of Revolution Analytics Inc. earlier this year, which will be integrated with SQL Server 2016.

The database is set to hit general availability sometime in the summer.
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